Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Here is something interesting, I am not sure if you followed
the story. During the Sydney Siege last week, when companies closed down their
offices and sent people home, Uber's price mechanism kicked in and raised Uber
cab prices to get out of the city to as much as $200. People found that very
repugnant, even though Uber argued that the high prices would increase cab
supply when it was needed in such difficult moments ... Anyway, Uber just sent
below email to its customers about 2 days ago.

The events of
last week in Sydney were upsetting for the whole community and we
are truly sorry for any concern that our process may have
added.

Our priority
was to help get as many people out of the CBD safely in the midst
of a fast-moving event. The decisions we made were based only on
helping to achieve this but we communicated this poorly, leading to
a lot of misunderstanding about our motivations.

Surge pricing
is algorithmic and kicks in automatically when demand for rides
outstrips the supply of cars that are on the road. This encourages
more drivers to the area where people are requesting rides. As an
increasing number of people were requesting rides that morning in
the CBD, surge pricing came into effect automatically and this is
when you might have seen higher prices.

We didn't stop
surge pricing immediately. This was the wrong decision. We quickly
reversed course and provided free rides to people needing to leave
the CBD. In the end, no rider was charged to leave the CBD on
Monday and all higher fares resulting from surge pricing earlier in
the day were fully refunded.

It's
unfortunate that the perception is that Uber did something against
the interests of the public. We certainly did not intend to. We
will learn from this incident and improve as a result of this
lesson. Uber is committed to ensuring users have a reliable ride
when they need it most - including and especially during disasters
and relevant states of emergency. We take our community commitment
very seriously in the 250+ cities Uber serves around the globe.

Please know
that we have listened to the feedback and we are working to
standardise a global policy to ensure we're serving communities in
the most efficient, effective and helpful way possible at all
times. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the victims' families,
those that were injured and the Sydney community of which we are so
proud to be a part.